I do a lot of direct mail advertising and want to start incorporating a web site along with that. I figure some people will go to a web site that won't mail in a reply card.
I was playing around on GoDaddy.com trying out different domains (most are taken or "premium" priced. But I bought a couple that interested me.
The one that shows the most promise is www.halfquote.com which I just bought for $9.95 a year. I could envision my mailing saying "about half the people are paying more than they need to for XYZ insurance. The other half are not. Which half are you in? Find out on www.halfquote.com
What do you think?
Now my big question...where can I go to get a good web site (or two) built? I don't mind paying the premium price if I know it's a good site that gets me leads if I drive the traffic to it.
Another domain I bought is just my name. Thought that would be good to own.
The third one is www.forethoughtfuneral.com . I bought that because Forethought Life Insurance is "The" name brand of insurance for funeral preplanning. They are now branching out in the final expense market so there will be consumers looking for them away from the funeral homes. My question on this one is: Is it legal to use the name of a company within your domain name? Even if I sell other brands of final expense insurance along with Forethought?
There are two basic schools of thought when trying to convert traffic. You can have a simple landing page that all the lead companies use, and just generate leads thought that, or you can have an extensive website that shows who you are and tells a lot about you.
The third one is www.forethoughtfuneral.com . I bought that because Forethought Life Insurance is "The" name brand of insurance for funeral preplanning. They are now branching out in the final expense market so there will be consumers looking for them away from the funeral homes. My question on this one is: Is it legal to use the name of a company within your domain name? Even if I sell other brands of final expense insurance along with Forethought?
I registered the domain securehorizonsdirect.com a few years ago. Without advertising, I received enough hits to place #2 on google. Probably wrote 20 MA plans over 2 years just by having the site built.
Then, UHC found out about it. The choice was to lose my contract and wind up in court, or give them the site. Apparently you can't register a trade name unless it's yours.
I don't know specifically about your site choice but I would only guess you're okay with it. I could have owned secureinsurance.com or something similar, but not the exact company name.
Rick
------------------------------------ ILIAA
Training, Community, Support, and Success Independent Life Insurance Agents Assn rick@iliaa.org
I registered the domain securehorizonsdirect.com a few years ago. Without advertising, I received enough hits to place #2 on google. Probably wrote 20 MA plans over 2 years just by having the site built.
Then, UHC found out about it. The choice was to lose my contract and wind up in court, or give them the site. Apparently you can't register a trade name unless it's yours.
I don't know specifically about your site choice but I would only guess you're okay with it. I could have owned secureinsurance.com or something similar, but not the exact company name.
Rick
I don't know. I guess what I'll do if I use that one is make a one pager about Forethought's products and use it to sell theirs exclusively. I've been a strong producer for them for many years so I don't think they will mind if I am generating them business. I'll be sipping Margarieta's with their execs in Riviera Maya in April so maybe I'll bring it up after they have a few drinks in them to test the waters.
I do a lot of direct mail advertising and want to start incorporating a web site along with that. I figure some people will go to a web site that won't mail in a reply card.
I was playing around on GoDaddy.com trying out different domains (most are taken or "premium" priced. But I bought a couple that interested me.
The one that shows the most promise is www.halfquote.com which I just bought for $9.95 a year. I could envision my mailing saying "about half the people are paying more than they need to for XYZ insurance. The other half are not. Which half are you in? Find out on www.halfquote.com
What do you think?
Now my big question...where can I go to get a good web site (or two) built? I don't mind paying the premium price if I know it's a good site that gets me leads if I drive the traffic to it.
Another domain I bought is just my name. Thought that would be good to own.
The third one is www.forethoughtfuneral.com . I bought that because Forethought Life Insurance is "The" name brand of insurance for funeral preplanning. They are now branching out in the final expense market so there will be consumers looking for them away from the funeral homes. My question on this one is: Is it legal to use the name of a company within your domain name? Even if I sell other brands of final expense insurance along with Forethought?
You should reg. halfquotes as well... quotes or plural of quote is more ideal...
Newby, you would be on very thin ice using Forethought without their express permission in writing because the name is a registered trademark. It's asking for trouble. Even if you changed it slightly, e.g.,
"fore-thoughtfuneral.com" or "for-thoughtfuneral.com", it would create confusion and would be illegal. You can, of course. check with Forethought's legal department. When I managed an exclusive Forethought General Agency, we had to use a name other than Forethought.
Newby, you would be on very thin ice using Forethought without their express permission in writing because the name is a registered trademark. It's asking for trouble. Even if you changed it slightly, e.g.,
"fore-thoughtfuneral.com" or "for-thoughtfuneral.com", it would create confusion and would be illegal. You can, of course. check with Forethought's legal department. When I managed an exclusive Forethought General Agency, we had to use a name other than Forethought.
I had set up sell4forethought.com as a recruiting site to get agents licensed. After about 3 days of the site being live Forethought told us we needed to change the domain name. I have since changed it to Sell4Forethought it did not take them long to find out about it.
I love your idea about halfquote.com. Godaddy has a web designing program called web site tonight. It is perfect for the novice web designer and the cost is low too. I have designed 3 sites with it in the last month feel free to check them out. Leave me comments about your thoughts of the pages. Sell4Forethought SellFuneralTrusts.com Free Burial Insurance Quotes
I had set up sell4forethought.com as a recruiting site to get agents licensed. After about 3 days of the site being live Forethought told us we needed to change the domain name. I have since changed it to Sell4Forethought it did not take them long to find out about it.
I love your idea about halfquote.com. Godaddy has a web designing program called web site tonight. It is perfect for the novice web designer and the cost is low too. I have designed 3 sites with it in the last month feel free to check them out. Leave me comments about your thoughts of the pages. Sell4Forethought SellFuneralTrusts.com Free Burial Insurance Quotes
Those sites look real good. I'm going to have to get back to getting mine created. I have about 5 domains and not a single functioning web site.
We just started our site Insurance Salesmanship & Marketing Training - The Habitual Salesman - Grant W Davis - because I was getting too many calls about Salesmanship and Marketing tools for Insurance related business. We went with Godaddy to register and the site is hosted by camelback/livesite. So far, no complaints-there are lots of good domains out their, find one that works for you and tie it into your insurance site. I think its something that will work even if you don't spend much on marketing and promoting the site.
We just started our site Insurance Salesmanship & Marketing Training - The Habitual Salesman - Grant W Davis - because I was getting too many calls about Salesmanship and Marketing tools for Insurance related business. We went with Godaddy to register and the site is hosted by camelback/livesite. So far, no complaints-there are lots of good domains out their, find one that works for you and tie it into your insurance site. I think its something that will work even if you don't spend much on marketing and promoting the site.
Grant Davis
President GDI Insurance
That's a good looking site too Grant. Did you build it yourself? I need to look at GoDaddys tools. I actually enjoy learning how to do things like that but just haven't had the time.
I also have quite a few domains. I tried to set up a site through GoDaddy and didn't get anywhere. I think the problem was my lack of knowledge concerning web design etc...
I would love to be able to find a place that will set up a site for you for about $300.
First of all, Godaddy will create a site for you for less than $300. And you can also just set up a Google website which looks far better than the Godaddy free templates.
Follow here:(click the lower right box for full screen.)
I'll try the Google method again. But I remember when I tried to set up one before, I had trouble setting up the "Quote" page. That is...the page where it has different fields of questions and they submit it for a quote.
Again, it was more my lack of familiarity with this type of thing rather than something wrong with Google's web design program.
The reason you had trouble with the quote page is because you need to insert any code in HTLM editor mode which is the bottom right corner of the Google page.
Web Sites and Domain Names
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